


Don't Mix (Up) Your Drinks

by Euphoric_Mandelbulb



Category: Being Human (UK), Cabin Pressure
Genre: Bars and Pubs, Crossover, Funetik Aksent, Gen, Hats, Humor, Humour, Kia-Ora, Minor Violence, Random Extra Stealth Crossover, Yellow Car, peach schnapps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2300510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euphoric_Mandelbulb/pseuds/Euphoric_Mandelbulb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two groups of oddballs: each thrown together by chance and necessity then eventually resigned to the inevitable development of friendship between them.<br/>Apart from that, all they have in common is that one of each group has an unusual reaction to a common drink. (Not even the same drink.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Mix (Up) Your Drinks

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting around in my buffer for a while, so it's hopefully better than my recent stuff!
> 
>  
> 
> Cabin Pressure: set sometime around Uskerty. Major spoilers for St Petersburg. Very slight spoilers for Uskerty. [Later note: Zurich-compliant.]  
> Being Human: set just after the end of S5 ep2 (Sticks and Rope). Major spoilers up to Series 4, minor spoilers for S5 ep2.
> 
> Not beta'd, because I have no beta :-( Did not need Britpicking, because I am British :-)

 

The Scottish pub was near the airport, and was also the last good pub before the motorway turnoff. These factors earned it a lot of custom, despite its delusions of gastropubness.  
The same factors were also responsible for the presence within it of two particular groups of people on this particular afternoon.  
  
  
At table 6, a young man with a scar running through his short hair from brow to nape and beyond ordered a pint and a bag of pork scratchings (and felt very grown-up and normal, which pleased him immensely).  
  
His well-spoken and neat friend decided to follow a whim (he'd seen a shop sign on the way here which vaguely reminded him of his last visit to Vienna, just a year before the beginning of the _other one_ 's most recent turn at the helm), and ordered schnapps, then returned to twirling his domino and trying to ignore his instincts' highlighting of the weakest and most vulnerable people in the room.  
  
Neither was in the mood to talk, after the ridiculously long drive and what had come to pass at their destination; they sat and thought about Alex, her family, and how she was coping. (Hal also wondered how anybody who was not actually physically starving could bring themselves to eat pork scratchings.)  
  
  
Meanwhile, at table 9, a cheery thirtysomething flight attendant in a bizarre and elaborate hat sat with a tall silver fox of a First Officer (who had an Arrangement with the staff concerning a certain bottle) and a short skinny young Captain who refused to remove his own hat (lime soda), looking at the drinks list with a rather perplexed air.  
  
“How can they not have pineapple juice?”  
  
“It's a pub, Arthur. The non-alcoholic drinks are not their priority.”  
  
“Ooh, what's this one? Kea Orah?”  
  
“Kia-Ora*, Arthur. It's Maori for 'hello'.”  
  
“What's Maori, Skip?”  
  
“It's the language of the, um, people who lived in New Zealand before the English took over. And, er, their descendants.”  
  
“Wow, I didn't know we owned New Zealand! Brilliant!”  
  
“We don't any more, the English people there, erm... split up with England. Just like the ones in Australia and America.”  
  
“... so why do they still speak English in all those places?”  
  
“...”  
  
“Force of habit?”  
  
“Well, a drink called Hello is a _brilliant_ idea! Can you get drinks that are called Hello in other languages?”  
  
“P-possibly...”  
  
“I sense the dawn of a new in-flight game: Food and Drink with Really Odd Names.”  
  
“Rugelach?”  
  
“I was thinking more along the lines of brand-names. For example: Skum Banana. Or Pocari Sweat.”  
  
“There goes today's cheese tray. Oh well, I'm sure I'll _manage_.”  
  
  
[*pronouncing it correctly as _keeorah_ ]  
  
  
Somehow, a number or two was read upside-down at some point.  
  
  
Tom was looking out of the window as the drinks arrived (checking on Alex, who'd stayed in the car: the pub was crowded, and she didn't want elbows going through her every two minutes), so he didn't notice Hal receiving the wrong drink.  
A physical compulsion almost as strong as _that one_ (though more benign) led Hal to drain the glass before he consciously realised what he was doing. (At least he hadn't done that with any humans... yet.)  
  
Tom's first warning was Hal's sudden burst of carefree laughter.  
His second was Hal shouting a few lines of romantic poetry at the pretty bartender (who looked confused but flattered).  
Tom sighed, leapt from his seat and began to wrestle Hal towards the door.  
  
  
Martin had his head in his hands as he tried to recall an obscure and oddly-named chocolate bar which he'd once seen his dad holding in a photo, and Douglas was eyeing up the attractive bartender (while running through his memorised romantic poems for something suitable with which to outdo the loud fellow at the other side of the pub), so neither realised what Arthur had just received and consumed until he exclaimed in delight, “Wow! Kia-Ora tastes EXACTLY like peach schnapps! Brilliant!”  
  
Martin raised his head and glared at Arthur in confusion and annoyance. “No it _doesn't_ , it's orange squash, what are you -”  
  
Douglas snatched and sniffed the empty glass (and resolutely ignored the part of his brain which demanded a taste).  
  
“Peach Alert, Martin.”  
  
“ _What_?”  
  
“Must have been a mix-up, some poor unfortunate soul is likely lamenting their loss at this very moment, now MOVE before it takes -”  
  
Arthur turned and glared at a nearby drinker.  
  
“Are you making fun of Skip's brilliant hat?!”  
  
“...oh dear.”  
  
Between them, the pilots managed to drag Arthur slowly but surely across the room, the flight attendant loudly accusing all and sundry of insulting himself, Skip, Skip's hat, his own hat, and (as they passed a window with a view of the airport) G-ERTI. He did not accuse anybody of insulting Douglas. Martin wasn't sure whether or not to feel miffed.  
  
  
Close to the door, the two parties collided.  
  
“What are you laughing at?!”  
  
“Pfffffft... What a piece of farce is a Tom! And a Hal. Why do we bother? It's all so inevit- Look, there's a dog! Not Tom, a quadrupedal dog. Can you talk to dogs, Tom? Ha ha ha...”  
  
Arthur tried to throw a punch and was caught by Tom before even Douglas could move.  
  
“Look, mate, I dunno why you's angreh, but it ain't right ter take it aht on people what ain't 'urt yeh an don' mean no 'arm or nowt -”  
  
“Have you ever seen someone with no arms attempt to eat soup? Although it was his own blood actually, closest thing we could find, very easy to find in fact... Hilarious in the extreme, even Mr Snow chuckled...”  
  
“Please ignore 'Al, 'e's 'ad Kia-Ora some'ow an' it makes 'im go all funny.”  
  
“Rather akin to Arthur here and peach schnapps?”  
  
Hal stared at Douglas in disbelief. “ _Peach_? As in Archers? You mean to tell me that they were advertising that... _moose urine_ as the refined Teutonic drink that is SCHNAPPS?! Should be flayed, the lot of them... Make them dance on red-hot iron...”  
  
He dissolved into another fit of giggles, apparently at another memory.  
  
Arthur scowled. “Peach schnapps is BRILLIANT!”  
  
Hal chuckled and grabbed vaguely at Martin's hat, or more likely its gold braid.  
  
At that, Arthur lost all control and tried to attack Hal with hands, feet and teeth.  
  
A few seconds later, Tom was pinning Arthur to the floor in a full Nelson. (Hal, suddenly left unsupported, swayed unsteadily and sat down hard on the nearest table, blowing kisses to Alex as she banged her head repeatedly on the dashboard. Fortunately, nobody enquired as to why he appeared to be addressing kisses to an empty parked car.)  
  
“I am bein' polite an' forgivin' 'cos you's doin' this in drink, but I do not want you ter go near 'Al again until you's sober. Is that understood?”  
  
Arthur squirmed. Tom pulled on his arms.  
  
“OW! You're _mean_ , get off!”  
  
“Promise me!”  
  
Arthur appeared to consider, then thrashed again. Tom sighed, then knocked Arthur unconscious with a well-calculated blow to the left temple.  
  
“'E should be up in abaht ten minutes, no 'arm done. Coom on, 'Al, stop lickin' the window; let's go back ter the car.”  
  
The pilots stared in disbelief as Tom hauled, forced and cajoled Hal towards the car parked outside. (Both pilots privately decided that the car doors apparently opening by themselves was an illusion caused by stress, and vowed never to mention it to anyone and _certainly_ never to the other pilot.)  
  
  
The commotion meant that nobody noticed the man in a bowtie sitting on a nearby garden wall and engulfing a very large chocolate bar as though his life depended upon it (which it did – he'd realised too late that the insect-bite cream he'd just used contained oil of wintergreen).  
Later, a man carrying heavy shopping bags sat down for a rest on the same wall, inadvertently resulting in his walking the rest of the way home with dubious-looking stains on the seat of his trousers from melted crumbs of chocolate. This sight made a small child laugh, which would have pleased the man in the bowtie had he not been in another time and place entirely by that point.  
  
  
“Sorry, Mum. Sorry, Douglas. Sorry, Skip. But you do know how to sober me up quickly in an emergency, you know!”  
  
Everybody looked blank.  
  
“You remember, Skip? You told me to tell the British Medical Journal, but they never answered and I don't think they ever printed it even though it worked brilliantly!”  
  
“When – hang on, I think I remember... that was at St Petersburg!”  
  
“Arthur, you silly boy, a) we cannot deliberately engineer a bird strike, b) we are not blowing up another engine just to end a Peach Alert early rather than dose you up and lock you in the hold until you doze off!”  
  
“Why not? The starboard one is _mine_ , D-Dad said so!”  
  
  
Alex rentaghosted Hal home (the journey had to be split into about thirty stages), much to his audible displeasure, and tied him to the notorious basement radiator until the Kia-Ora had worn off enough for him to be taken back to Scotland and drive Tom home.  
The long return journey to Wales was filled with awkward silence.  
  
“I think I remember that drunk guy from somethin' online,” Alex eventually remarked. “Somethin' to do with the game Yellow Car.”  
  
“'Ow'd yer play that?” asked Tom.  
  
“Try tae be the first tae say 'yellow car' if ye see a yellow car. I used tae play the full version with me brothers, where ye pinch someone fer a yellow car and punch 'em fer a Mini. An' beat 'em senseless fer a yellow Mini. Dad banned it in the end after next door bought a yellow Mini an' every one of us had a black eye by the end o' the week. Ryan got a day off school with double black eyes, lucky duck!”  
  
Tom saw her wistful expression and proceeded to spend the next few hours driving Hal to distraction by playing full-on Yellow Car Mini with Alex. More or less literally – this not only cheered Alex up immensely, but prevented Hal from dwelling on his earlier Kia-Ora episode.  
By the time they arrived home, Hal was grumbling about “the frivolity of the young”, so he was clearly feeling much happier. Tom fell asleep into his dinner full of pride in a good deed well done.

**Author's Note:**

> {This isn't based on any particular town or pub, at least partly because I have no idea where Alex's family are supposed to live.
> 
> Kia-Ora is fruit squash. Obviously, this pub was serving the orange version – the pilots wouldn't have let Arthur order the mixed-fruit version in case it set off a Strawberry Drill.
> 
> Rugelach are traditional Jewish pastries. 
> 
> Skum Banana was an Italian-made chocolate bar, very unsuccessful in the UK. 
> 
> Pocari Sweat is an Asian electrolyte drink.
> 
> The chocolate bar which Martin is trying to remember is the Nunch, now called the Starbar.
> 
> My idea of this fictitious pub's layout has the groups on opposite sides, near the back, with the door at the front in the middle. Tom and Hal have a good view of their car through a front window if nobody's head is in the way too much; somewhere on the other side is a window which, from one precise angle, provides a glimpse of the airport.
> 
> HEALTH WARNING: any head injury which causes unconsciousness has caused some level of concussion. Douglas has medical training (so he's probably MJN's first-aider) and treated Arthur successfully. Do NOT try any of this at home!  
> It's also not a good idea to give a concussed person drowsiness-inducing medicine – the crew skipped that on this occasion. Neither is it a good idea to combine ANY medicine with alcohol (it increases the side-effects of both) – it was a last resort to make Arthur stop trying to kill people. Again, do NOT try this at home.
> 
> The sad thing is that Tom and Arthur would probably get along brilliantly if they met in better circumstances. But I couldn't think of a plot for that, so I had to make them fight. :-( I am an awful person.
> 
> Oil of wintergreen is the starting-point of aspirin manufacture. Yes, the man in the bowtie is the Eleventh Doctor. The Sixth Doctor once survived aspirin poisoning (in an audio adventure, The Condemned, so not sure if this is entirely canon) by eating chocolate – the simple triglycerides in the chocolate apparently counteracted the anti-platelet effect of the aspirin. (This information researched on TARDIS Data Core, the Doctor Who Wiki.)}


End file.
